Any reviewer knows that the first thing to a successful and exciting review is the build-up ? that first eye-catching, thought provoking paragraph.

Unfortunately it's hard to do this when the game in question is neither of the above. So EA, what happened?

Since when is it the "in thing" to regress rather than progress? 'MySims Kingdom' was excellent; 'MySims Racing' kept me up all night in awe, but 'MySims Party' made me think of the washing I still had to do.

It is an epic flop all across the board.

In story mode 'MySims Party' throws you into a town where the main objective is to win festivals. Festivals are made up of a series of mini games; when you complete these mini games and win the festival you are rewarded with buildings, monuments and popularity so that more Sims will move into your town.

This brings up the only positive aspect I found in 'MySims Party': Nowadays game developers have become accustomed to making you play the single player game first, unlocking all the extras and then playing the game again with extras and achievements under your belt. EA has done it differently; unexpectedly and successfully giving access to all the mini games right from the start.

You can play with three friends, or three computer players and each character can be customised. Unfortunately, EA has not carried forward the famous Sim creator from 'The Sims' franchise. This time they have just given you simple options to change the appearance of your Sim, rather than the creative freedom they are famous for.

Each of these characters ? created or existing ? will have different attributes. So you need to choose the right player for the right mini game. Each time you play a mini game your character will lose a few attributes, so you need to fluctuate your Sim choice in order to keep a strong team.

The problem here is that you generally stick with the Sim you have created and if you have not created a whole team, your Sim will be so low on attribute points that you won't win anything. In the end, it seems that this feature could have done more for the game if it was rather left out.

'MySims Party' comes with 50 mini games; however, they are all boring and intellectually insulting. First off they are way too simple ? I gave this game to my 9-year-old cousin and he had all these games under his belt in less than an hour.

You see the problem is that all EA did was come up with about seven or eight mini game concepts and then tweaked them until they hit 50. I don't know about you, but I would rather have 20 really good mini games than the 50 bad ones we got.

One thing EA seems to have forgotten is that this is a kid's game and, while the mini games are simple, the controls are difficult to master and can become incredibly frustrating. I have been playing games my whole life, am certainly passed being anything that resembles a kid, and even I found the controls to be complicated.

Not only that but some of the controls where broken. In the dance-off game you follow a series of control prompts to make your Sim dance ? the one who gets the most right wins. Simple. First I thought it was just another famous EA 'restart the game' glitch. But even after doing that, my Sims still wouldn't jive the way I wanted him to.

? But wait! There's more - on page 2!